The Monster Mash Remix: Bomani J. Story’s The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster

• In Event: Black Horror and Haunting in Literature and Film

Abstract

This paper offers a critical reading of Bomani J. Story’s 2023 film, The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster. An adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 classic novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, The Angry Black Girl reimagines the Gothic tropes of the mad scientist and the monstrous while delivering the distinctive stylings of Shelley’s body horror complicating the narrative through sonic and spatial dissonance creating a regenerative remix. By applying remix theory to the mashup of Frankenstein and The Angry Black Girl, what I term a Monster Mash Remix emerges operating in a way that adopts elements from at least two distinct sources that are constantly changing while maintaining certain characteristics. Remix theory allows us to consider the nuances of Story’s adaptations of the tropes of the mad scientist, the monstrous, and Gothic architecture through the horrors of everyday black life.

The Gothic landscape is redefined in the moody architecture of the projects, a neglected and maligned cluster of apartment buildings where Vicaria’s laboratory is hosted in an abandoned building. If Vicaria is assuming the role of Dr. Frankenstein, then her brother Chris is the monster. Having been killed by gun violence, she attempts to resurrect her deceased brother, restore the family unit, and receive the intellectual/scientific validation she has been denied. Consistent with Frankenstein’s vengeful monster, Chris acts out his death-dealing resentments and goes on a rampage murdering friends and enemies. An emphasis on black body horror presents Chris as proto-monstrous even before his actual monsterization. The intentional laboring of Chris’s thingness—that is emptying out any subjectivity such that we might only comprehend him through an assortment of blackened and bloodied body parts works to support the technology of race that often leads to anti-black violence. Vicaria’s mad science invites a discussion of medicalizing blackness and the medical experimentation conducted on black bodies, while Chris’s dehumanization falls in line with the creation of black monstrosity by socio/political forces seeking authorization for the destruction of black life. Ultimately, the Monster Mash Remix demonstrates how black bodies have been sampled, reassembled, and repeated like beats producing memorable anthems for gothic grooves.

Author

• Tashima Thomas, Southern Methodist University